#WordWeavers 2026.01.07 — What’s your MC’s family like?
Bolt was a stubborn child. Though most day angels fledge by age 3, Bolt continued walking level ground when she was already 10. It frustrated her mother and uncle no end, as well as school flight instructors and a few paid-for flight tutors. One day, when Bolt strayed too close to a cliff—she liked to open her wings and feel the breeze lofting from below buzz through her feathers—her uncle shoved her over the edge.
Well, we know Bolt survived that. Turned into a right talented aerial athlete—with no scholastic interest, zilch, in anything save the kinesiology of training and anatomy. Nothing that could make a living. A bit of a hellion, she got into constant trouble at school, often with one muscly boy or another; yes, what you were thinking, that too. The tension between her and her family peaked after she told them she wanted to go into a blue collar trade instead college. She got disappointment from them, not an attempt to control her—something she's still dealing with today. Was it love? Was it apathy. She never grew to dislike her mother or her uncle, or her baby brother. To a degree, he took the pressure off of her to conform. It made her handle her own messes better.
When she ran from the constabulary and got caught up in the mob, one of her regrets was that she had to cut off all contact lest the mob use her family to more tightly control her. A dozen years later, during the story, it is a sore point.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
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